Adrian Johnston – In Language More than Language Itself – Reconsidering the Significance of Structuralism in Lacan’s Thought
 
THE LETTER 25 (Summer 2002) pages 39-75
 
Despite the formidable size of his oeuvre, spanning a period from 1932 to 1980, Lacan is frequently summarized with reference to a single statement: ‘The unconscious is structured like a language.’ Both critics and disciples of Lacanian thought usually assert that Lacan’s primary theoretical contribution consists of a linguistic turn wherein the energetic, libidinal unconscious of Freud is transformed into a formalizable, symbolic structure. To some, this ‘linguistification’ of the unconscious represents a necessary overcoming of Freud’s inappropriate reliance upon nineteenth century biology and physics. To others who are less sympathetic, Lacan’s claim to be the sole initiator of an orthodox ‘return to Freud’ is refuted by his misguided effort to reformulate Freudian metapsychology within the parameters of Saussurian structural linguistics, an effort supposedly foreign to Freud’s own vision of the psyche.